


Patient

by OzQueen



Series: CP 100 situations [22]
Category: Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Genre: Gen, Time Travel, episode based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/pseuds/OzQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't help it if it's weird she's sitting here with him now, timelines all crossed and jumbled, lives meeting before they're supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patient

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Just in time for the challenge on the forum here on FFN - "episode based fic." Eee! This is kind of... loose, I guess? It's based on that scene from _Future Shock_ , where Gaia summons the future Planeteers to help, and Wheeler notices that a couple of them look an awful lot like he and Linka...
> 
> I've changed several details, including the physical description of what is possibly (okay, definitely) his daughter. Because come on, she just looked like Linka. So I gave her red hair, because aw.
> 
> This is, obviously, not related to the previous chapter, though I do intend to continue that at some point in the future.

* * *

" _Hey_!"

Wheeler coughs and opens watering eyes. His ears are ringing. His face is wet with sweat or blood – perhaps both. The sky is filled with dust and noise, flashes of supernatural light.

"We gotta go!"

He notices her now – trying to pull him up, and he thinks his eyes are really messed up, because she looks younger than ever and her hair is the same fiery red as his own.

Maybe it's the blood in his eyes.

His legs buckle beneath him, but he falls after her, weaving drunkenly between raw scars in the earth, scraps of metal which, he thinks, were the pods the eco-villains were in just moments before.

It takes him a few moments to realise it's not Linka pulling him by the hand, but one of the future Planeteers – the kids Gaia summoned moments before Zarm lost his mind and started to rip the planet apart right in front of them.

Wheeler spits blood and starts to ask where Gaia is – where his friends are, where _her_ friends are, where either of the two Captain Planet figures are.

"Move!" she screams at him. The air is filling with smoke and the noise in his head is almost enough to bring him to his knees.

He falls too soon, but she pulls him down into a ditch, dirt and grass torn above them, barely sheltering them, but hiding them from view.

He hopes it's enough.

"Are you okay?" She – she's so much like Linka – leans over him worriedly, swiping clumsily at the blood that's running into his eyes.

"Never felt better," he says. His tongue is numb and he thinks he must have bitten it when he went flying through the air before. "Where's everyone?" He blinks, feeling a bit sick.

"Dunno." Her eyes are wide and blue. "Gaia's up there somewhere."

A roll of thunder shakes the sky, the earth. Wheeler feels it tremble in his bones.

"This is bad," he says. He spits blood into the dirt and tries to sit up. "Where are my friends?"

"I don't _know,_ " she says. "Sit down, you're gonna bleed to death."

He slumps under her hand, worry and fear no match for a throbbing head and aching muscles.

"Listen, Gaia will fix it," she says. Her eyes blaze and it fills him with a strange sort of confidence. He believes her.

"Yeah," he agrees. He watches her for a moment; watches her run a hand – streaked with mud and blood – through her coppery hair, and there's something just so _familiar_ about her.

"You look a lot like Linka," he says suddenly. "Except for the hair."

He almost adds it on as an afterthought, but as soon as the words occur to him – _you've got my hair_ – he freezes up. He stares at her, noting the line of her nose and her jaw, the sky-blue shade of her eyes, the way she worries her lower lip with her teeth.

"What?" she asks sharply, noticing his new interest in her.

"What's your name?" he asks, because he doesn't know what else to ask. (He's pretty sure there are rules, but Gaia's busy now and she can't stop him asking questions.)

She rubs at a grazed knee, looking nervous. "Anna," she says eventually.

_Ahh-na._

"Sounds Russian," he says. He sits up, leaning against the torn earth behind him. His pain is almost forgotten.

She looks away. "Does it?"

She is perfect, he thinks. He wants to laugh, or hug her, or something, because spontaneous happiness has grabbed hold of him fiercely and is driving him to action – but they are strangers.

Strangers, and not.

" _What_?" she asks again, sounding positively peevish now.

"Nothing," he answers. He tries to stop staring at her. ( _She's got my hair and my eyes, but Linka's nose and mouth, and Linka's shoulders and hands, and the attitude probably comes from the both of us.)_

She peers up over the crest of earth they've taken shelter behind. "Gaia and Zarm are still fighting it out," she says, as though the thunder and lightning above them wasn't enough to clue him in. "I can see Uncle Kwame –"

She bites off and falls back, looking afraid and furious.

"Uncle Kwame, huh?" Wheeler asks. He wipes his stinging eyes free of blood, and smirks at her.

She folds her arms and looks away, refusing to speak to him. She looks so much like Linka here, it's a confirmation of everything.

Wheeler fidgets, shifting uncomfortably. He wipes blood off his face onto his arm. "Is Kwame all right?" he asks.

"Yeah." She glances at him and winces. "You've just opened up the cut on your face again."

He can feel fresh blood dripping down his cheek. "Figured as much." He presses his palm against his brow. "You hurt?"

She shakes her head and wraps her arms around her knees.

"How old are you?" Wheeler asks.

"Fifteen."

"And you're a Planeteer?" he asks, suddenly angry. (There's a voice at the back of his head telling him to shut up, but he shouts back at it with a voice that rings from his heart – that there's no way this girl _can't_ be his daughter, because look at her; look at her, she's so damn perfect and he can't help it if it's weird she's sitting here with him now, timelines all crossed and jumbled, lives meeting before they're supposed to.)

"Of course I'm a Planeteer!" she says.

"Why aren't you in school?" he asks.

She snorts. "Please. You're the _last_ person who should be lecturing me on that."

He doesn't quite know what to say to that.

She looks pleased with herself. She dusts off her hands and squints up at the sky. Dust is still swirling about, but things have quietened. Wheeler thinks he can hear Gaia and Ma-Ti talking together, facing up to Zarm, and he knows things are probably drawing to a close.

He feels tired, sore, dizzy... and exhilarated. Anna is confirmation that the future will be fine – better than fine. He and Linka have a daughter at some point in the future, which is more than he'd ever dared to hope.

But then, the whole point of today is knowing that the future can turn on a dime and become something completely different in a split second.

The fear clenches in his gut again.

"How do I win her over?" he asks, leaning over so he can see her better.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asks, bewildered.

"Linka," he says impatiently.

"I'm _Anna_ ," she says, eyes wide. "Do you have concussion?"

"No, listen," he says, quickly, because now he can hear Kwame and he knows his friends are gathering, probably because victory is near, which means this moment is about to be lost. "Listen, how do I win Linka over?"

Anna rolls her eyes and mutters something that makes his heart skip a beat. _"Bozhe moy._ "

"I know I do," he says, smug. "I know I'm your dad and she's your ma, and maybe that'll never happen unless you tell me how to win her heart, huh?"

Anna waves her hand, apparently unconcerned. "You don't know what you're talking about," she says. But then she adds, "I'm not supposed to say."

"Gaia's rules?" Wheeler asks in a low voice.

Anna smirks. (His smirk, with Linka's mouth, makes him grin.) "Mom's rules," she says. "Told me not to tell you."

"She did not," Wheeler argues, annoyed.

"She did," Anna shoots back. "And I want to stay on her good side. Besides," she adds, "my future's good, and I don't wanna mess it up. Who knows what mess I've already caused, just by dragging you here."

She frowns at him, like it was his fault he was nearly killed in an explosion caused by the eco-villains.

"Leaving me to die would probably make your future kind of bleak," Wheeler points out.

Her mouth twitches. "I guess."

"Are we happy?" Wheeler asks curiously. "Me and Linka?"

"Sickeningly so," Anna says through gritted teeth. "If it makes a difference, me telling you now, can you remember to dial it back a bit when you're in front of your kids? It grosses us out."

Wheeler's heart lifts again. "We've got more kids?" he asks.

Anna jerks her thumb toward the direction of the battle. "Your son's up there somewhere," she says. "Probably getting in the way."

Wheeler feels faint with happiness. (Or blood loss. Or both.)

"If you tell me," he says, leaning back in the dirt again, "I'll spoil you. Sneak you candy when Linka says you can't have any. Let you stay up late. Won't make you eat your vegetables."

She looks amused. "Right."

"I swear," he says.

"I believe you." She cocks an eyebrow at him, looking at him rather curiously. "How old are you? Now, I mean?"

"Twenty," he says.

He can see her doing the math in her head. Counting the years until her existence.

"Hm," she says. She tilts her head.

"What?" he asks.

"They're looking for us." She gets to her feet and brushes herself down. "Over here!" she calls. "We're okay!" She looks down at him. "You getting up?"

"Please tell me," he begs. "I've tried everything."

Anna sighs and offers him her hand, pulling him to his feet with surprising strength. She steps away from him then, looking nervous. But the smirk ( _his_ smirk, and he can't get over how lovely it is to see it on her) is soon back on her face again. "I'll tell you," she says. "In Russian."

"I don't speak Russian," he says, desperate now.

She feigns surprise. "You _don't_?" She shoves him lightly in the direction of the gathering Planeteers – present and future. "Guess you'll just have to learn, then, huh?"

"Wait," he blurts. "Was that a clue?"

She shrugs, and starts to stroll ahead of him. "Sorry, Dad," she says, murmuring the words to him over her shoulder with a cheeky grin. "Guess you'll just have to be patient."


End file.
